I find it curious how islands that had punk scenes in the '80s all seemed to have their own little thing going. New Zealand is relatively close to Australia, and it would stand to reason that the two would share major musical components in the early stages of the (then new and exciting) punk scene...but not so. While the Aussies were making musical whoopie on the coattails of the garage drenched punk of RADIO BIRDMAN, their Pacific neighbors were recreating imperialist punk sounds from the UK, but played through filters clouded with the hazy mist of isolated artists and drug addled individualists lost in the lush rolling hills. Flowery praise for a tape that starts of with a track from BONER, eh? This comp, released by Battery Hen Cassettes in 1988(?), is more considerably straightforward than the other NZ mixes that have appeared on The Escape, and this kiwi diversion away art punk means that you get absolutely killer jams from STENCH OF THE WOUNDED (the most rudimentary of the bunch, plodding, awkward and pedestrian), COMPOS MENTIS (brilliantly noisy female fronted punk bathed in high end distortion), CASUALTY (perhaps the most typically UK sounding band I've heard from New Zealand), ARMATRAK (the most melodic and accomplished musicians on the tape), the aforementioned BONER (another UK influenced attack, especially on "Babies," but the comp opens with a beautifully discordant dirge that sets the tone for the next 45+ minutes) and WORLD WAR 3 (distorted and chaotic anarcho noise). COMPOS MENTIS and CASUALTY both have vinyl releases I would love to get my hands on, but most of these bands only released tracks on this and other cassette compilations.
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